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There was an interior corridor extending from the waiting-room to the rue Saint Martin. Ganimard rushed through it and arrived just in time to observe Baudru upon the top of the Batignolles-Jardin de Plates omnibus as it was turning the corner of the rue de Rivoli. He ran and caught the omnibus. But he had lost his two assistants. He must continue the pursuit alone.
From his point of view there was neither complicity nor chance. Baudru was an instrument upon which Arsene Lupin had played with his extraordinary skill. Baudru, when set at liberty, would lead them to Arsene Lupin or, at least, to some of his accomplices. The two inspectors, Folenfant and Dieuzy, were assigned to assist Ganimard.
Ganimard felt his hair stand on end in horror and surprise. It was that laugh, that infernal laugh he knew so well! With a sudden movement, he seized the man by the collar and looked at him with a keen, penetrating gaze; and found that he no longer saw the man Baudru. To be sure, he saw Baudru; but, at the same time, he saw the other, the real man, Lupin.
If you had not spoken, I would have arranged for some one else to do it. I couldn't allow poor Baudru Desire to be convicted." "Then," murmured Ganimard, "it was you that was there? And now you are here?" "It is I, always I, only I." "Can it be possible?" "Oh, it is not the work of a sorcerer.
In his anger he was inclined to seize the man by the collar without ceremony. Was it not with premeditation and by means of an ingenious ruse that his pretended imbecile had separated him from his assistants? He looked at Baudru. The latter was asleep on the bench, his head rolling from side to side, his mouth half-opened, and an incredible expression of stupidity on his blotched face.
Baudru Desire was turned over to the anthropological service; they had never seen anything like him. However, they easily traced his past history. He was known at Courbevois, at Asnieres and at Levallois. He lived on alms and slept in one of those rag-picker's huts near the barrier de Ternes. He had disappeared from there a year ago. Had he been enticed away by Arsene Lupin?
He was contented there, plenty to eat, and he slept well so he did not complain. All that seemed probable; and, amidst the mirth and excitement of the spectators, the judge adjourned the trial until the story could be investigated and verified. The following facts were at once established by an examination of the prison records: Eight weeks before a man named Baudru Desire had slept at the Depot.
Ganimard called to his two assistants, and, without removing his eyes from the waiting room, he said to them: "Stop a carriage....no, two. That will be better. I will go with one of you, and we will follow him." The men obeyed. Yet Baudru did not appear. Ganimard entered the waiting-room. It was empty. "Idiot that I am!" he muttered, "I forgot there was another exit."
No, such an adversary was incapable of deceiving old Ganimard. It was a stroke of luck nothing more. At the Galleries-Lafayette, the man leaped from the omnibus and took the La Muette tramway, following the boulevard Haussmann and the avenue Victor Hugo. Baudru alighted at La Muette station; and, with a nonchalant air, strolled into the Bois de Boulogne.
But, in offering to them this excellent Baudru, it was inevitable, you understand, inevitable that they would seize upon him, and, despite the insurmountable difficulties of a substitution, they would prefer to believe in a substitution than confess their ignorance." "Yes, yes, of course," said Ganimard.
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